Savings banks – one of the most favored subjects of praise in recent times. Not only Witte's advocacy, but also "critical" praise makes use of them. Davids and Herzes, Chernovs and Bulgakovs, Prokopovichs and Totomiantses, – in a word, all proponents of the fashionable "critique of Marxism" (not to mention the respectable professors, Kablukovs and Karyshevs) cry out in various ways and voices: "These orthodox thinkers talk about the concentration of capital! – Yet savings banks alone already show us the decentralization of capital. They talk about the growth of destitution! But in reality we see the growth of small popular savings."

Let us take the official data on Russian savings banks in 1899{103} that was sent to us by a well-meaning person and examine it more closely. In total, Russia had 4,781 state savings banks in 1899, including 3,718 postal-telegraph banks and 84 factory-plant banks. Over five years (from 1895 to 1899), the number of banks increased by 1,189, i.e., by one-third. The number of depositors during the same period rose from 1,664 thousand to 3,145 thousand, i.e., by almost one and a half million (by 89%), while the sum of monetary deposits rose from 330 million rubles to 608 million rubles, i.e., by 278 million rubles, or by 84%. Thus, apparently, a gigantic growth of "popular savings"?

But here is a circumstance that strikes one's eye. From the literature on savings banks it is known that during the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s, the growth of the sum of deposits proceeded fastest during the famine years, 1891 and 1892. That is one side. On the other side, – we know that throughout this entire period, during the 1880s and 1890s taken together, alongside the growth of "popular savings" there proceeded a strikingly rapid and acute process of impoverishment, ruin, and starvation of the peasantry. In order to understand how these contradictory phenomena can coexist, one need only recall that the most distinctive feature of Russia's economic life during the indicated period is the growth of monetary economy. An increase in deposits in savings banks, however, points not at all to the growth of "popular" savings in general, but only to the growth (sometimes merely the concentration in central institutions) of monetary "savings." In the peasantry, for example, in the transition from natural economy to monetary economy, an increase in monetary savings is quite possible alongside a decrease in the total sum of "popular" savings. An old-fashioned peasant kept his savings in a money-box, when these were monetary savings, but for the most part these savings consisted of grain, fodder, linen, firewood and the like items "in kind." Now the ruined and ruining peasant has neither natural nor monetary savings, while an insignificant minority of enriching peasants accumulate monetary savings and begin to deposit them in state savings banks. Thus, alongside the growth of famines, the growth of deposits becomes completely explicable, signifying not an improvement of popular well-being, but the displacement of the old, independent peasant by the new rural bourgeoisie, i.e., well-to-do peasants who cannot conduct their affairs without hiring laborers or day-laborers.

Particularly interesting indirect confirmation of what has been said is provided by the data on the distribution of depositors by occupation. These data relate to holders of almost 3 million (2,942 thousand) passbooks with a sum of deposits of 545 million rubles. The average deposit comes to 185 rubles – as you see, a sum clearly indicating the preponderance among depositors of those constituting an insignificant minority of the Russian people, the "fortunate ones," who possess inherited or acquired property. The largest depositors are the clergy: 46 million rubles on 137 thousand passbooks, i.e., 333 rubles per passbook. Concern for the salvation of the flock's soul – a matter that must be quite profitable… Then – landowners: 9 million rubles on 36 thousand passbooks, i.e., 268 rubles per passbook; next – merchants: 59 million rubles on 268 thousand passbooks, i.e., 222 rubles per passbook; then officers – at 219 rubles per passbook, civil officials – at 202 rubles. Only in sixth place stands "agriculture and rural occupations": 640 thousand passbooks for a sum of 126 million rubles, i.e., 197 rubles per passbook; then "occupations in private service" – at 196 rubles; "miscellaneous occupations" – at 186 rubles; urban trades – at 159 rubles; "domestic service" – at 143 rubles; work in factories and plants – at 136 rubles, and in last place "lower military ranks" – at 86 rubles.

Thus, factory-plant workers occupy, in essence, the last place in the size of their savings (not counting soldiers maintained by the treasury)! Even domestic servants have a higher average size of savings (143 rubles per passbook against 136 rubles) and give a far greater number of depositors. Namely: servants have 333 thousand passbooks for a sum of 48 million rubles, while factory-plant workers have 157 thousand passbooks for a sum of 21 million rubles. The proletariat, which creates all the wealth of our nobility and our bigwigs, is placed in worse conditions than their personal servants! Of all Russian factory-plant workers (not fewer than two million people), only approximately one-sixth{104} has the opportunity to make even the most insignificant deposits in savings banks, – and this despite the fact that workers' entire income is exclusively monetary and they often have to support a family in the village, as a result of which their deposits mean for the most part not "savings" in the proper sense of the word, but simply sums set aside until the next remittance home, and the like. We will not even speak of the fact that the category "work in factories and plants" probably included office workers, foremen, overseers, in a word, not real workers at all.

As for the peasantry, – if we assume that it is mainly embraced by the category "agriculture and rural occupations," – then its average size of savings turns out, as we have seen, to be higher even than that of those in private service, and considerably exceeds the average savings of the "urban tradesman" (i.e., probably the shopkeeper, craftsman, janitor, etc.). Evidently, these 640 thousand peasants (out of a total of around 10 million households or families) with 126 million rubles in savings banks belong exclusively to the peasant bourgeoisie. It is to these and perhaps only to peasants closely connected with them that all those data on the progress of agriculture, the spread of machinery, the improvement of land culture and standard of living, and so on, – data which the Wittes put forward against socialists to prove "growth of popular well-being," data which the liberals (and the "critics") – to refute the "Marxist dogma" about the ruin and decline of small production in agriculture. These gentlemen do not notice (or pretend not to notice) that the decline of small production is expressed precisely in the fact that from among small producers an insignificant number grows wealthy at the expense of the ruin of the masses.

Still more interesting are the data on the distribution of the total number of depositors by the size of their deposits. In round figures this distribution is as follows: of three million depositors, one million has deposits of up to 25 rubles. They have in total 7 million rubles (out of 545 million rubles, i.e., only 12 kopecks out of every 10 rubles of the total sum of deposits!). The average size of their deposits is seven rubles. This means that genuinely small depositors, constituting one-third of the total number, possess only 1/83 of all deposits. Further, depositors having from 25 to 100 rubles comprise one-fifth of the total number (600 thousand) and have in total 36 million rubles, – an average of 55 rubles. Combining both these categories, we obtain that more than half of all depositors (1.6 million out of 3 million) have only 42 million rubles out of 545, i.e., 1/12. Of the remaining, well-to-do depositors, one million has from 100 to 500 rubles – they have in total 209 million rubles, an average of 223 rubles per depositor. 400 thousand depositors each have over 500 rubles; they have in total 293 million rubles – an average of 762 rubles per depositor. Consequently, these, obviously already wealthy, people, constituting less than 1/7 of the total number of depositors, possess more than half (54%) of all capital.

Thus, the concentration of capital in contemporary society, the impoverishment of the masses of the population, manifests itself with tremendous force even in such an institution which is specially adapted for the "lesser brother," for the poor population, since the maximum size of deposits is by law limited to 1,000 rubles. And note that this concentration of property, characteristic of every capitalist society, is still stronger in advanced countries, despite the greater "democratization" of savings banks in them. For example, in France on December 31, 1899, there were 10½ million passbooks in savings banks for a sum of 4,337 million francs (a franc is slightly less than 40 kopecks). On average, this gives 412 francs per passbook, or about 160 rubles, i.e., less than the average deposit in Russian savings banks. The number of small depositors in France is also relatively greater than in Russia: almost one-third of depositors (3⅓ million) have deposits of up to 20 francs (8 rubles), with an average of 13 francs (5 rubles). In total, these depositors have only 35 million francs out of the total sum of 4,337 million, i.e., 1/125. Depositors having up to 100 francs constitute slightly more than half of the total number (5.3 million), while they have in total only 143 million francs, i.e., 1/33 of the total sum of deposits. On the contrary, depositors with 1,000 and more francs (400 and more rubles), constituting less than one-fifth (18.5%) of the total number of depositors, concentrate more than two-thirds (68.7%) of the total sum of deposits, namely 2,979 million francs out of 4,337 million.

Thus, the reader now has before him some material for evaluating the arguments of our "critics." One and the same fact: a tremendous increase in deposits in savings banks and an increase especially in the number of small depositors – is interpreted in various ways. The "critic of Marxism" says: popular well-being is growing, the decentralization of capital is growing. The socialist says: a transformation of "natural" savings into monetary savings is occurring, the number of well-to-do peasants is growing, who are transforming themselves into the bourgeoisie and transforming their savings into capital. Incomparably faster still is the growth in the number of peasants being thrust into the proletariat, living by the sale of their labor-power and giving (even if only temporarily) scraps of their pittance to savings in the banks. The numerousness of small depositors proves precisely the numerousness of the poor in capitalist society, for the share of these small depositors in the total sum of deposits is negligible.

The question arises: how does the "critic" differ from the most ordinary bourgeois?

Let us proceed further. Let us look at what use is made of the capital of savings banks and precisely how it is used. In Russia these capitals first and foremost strengthen the power of the military and police-bourgeois state. The tsarist government (as we already indicated in the editorial of No. 15 of *Iskra*)[142] disposes of these capitals as freely and without control as of all other people's property that falls into its hands. It calmly "borrows" hundreds of millions from these capitals to pay for its Chinese expeditions, to give subsidies to capitalists and landowners, to rearm the army, expand the navy, and so on. Thus, for example, in 1899, out of the total sum of 679 million rubles in savings banks, 613 million rubles were in interest-bearing securities, namely: 230 million in state loans, 215 million in mortgage bonds of land banks, and 168 million in railway loans.

The treasury makes a very profitable "deal": first, it covers all the expenses of the savings banks and receives a net profit (heretofore converted into the reserve capital of the savings banks); second, it forces the depositors to cover the deficits of our state finances (forces them to loan money to the treasury). On average from 1894 to 1899, deposits in savings banks amounted to about 250 million rubles a year, while withdrawals amounted to about 200 million rubles. From fifty million rubles, therefore, is obtained annually for patching up through loans the holes in the purse of the state treasury, which seems to be robbed by all who are not lazy. What is there to fear from a deficit from throwing money away on wars and subsidies to courtly hangers-on, landowners and factory-owners! From "popular savings" one can always cover a respectable sum!

As a parenthetical note, let us observe that the treasury makes a profitable "deal" partly because it steadily lowers the interest rate on monetary deposits, and this interest rate stands below the interest rate on securities. For example, in 1894 the interest rate on monetary deposits was 4.12%, on securities – 4.34%; in 1899 – 3.92% and 4.02%. The lowering of the interest rate is, as is well known, a phenomenon common to all capitalist countries and demonstrates most vividly and strikingly the growth of large capital and large production at the expense of small, since the rate of interest is determined in the final analysis by the relationship between the entire sum of profit and the entire sum of capital invested in production. Similarly, one cannot pass over in silence the fact that the treasury is increasingly exploiting the labor of postal-telegraph officials: previously they only dealt with the mail, then they added the telegraph, now they have piled upon them the operations of receiving and paying out savings (let us recall that out of 4,781 banks – 3,718 are postal-telegraph). A terrible intensification of work, a lengthening of the working day – that is what this means for the mass of minor postal-telegraph employees. But as for their pay, the treasury is as stingy as the most tight-fisted kulak: the lowest-ranking, beginning employees receive literally starvation wages, and then an endless gradation of ranks is established with raises of a quarter-kopeck or fifty-kopecks, while the prospect of a paltry pension after forty or fifty years of labor is to bind this real "official proletariat" even more tightly.

But let us return to the use of the capital of the banks. We saw that 215 million rubles the banks invest (by the will of the Russian government) in mortgage bonds of land banks and 168 million rubles in railway loans. This fact has given occasion to yet another, very widespread in recent times, manifestation of bourgeois… that is, "critical" profundity. Essentially, we are told by Bernsteins, Herzes, Chernovs, Bulgakovs and the like – this fact means that small depositors in savings banks become owners of railways, holders of mortgages on land. In reality, they say, even such purely capitalist and colossally large enterprises as railways and banks are increasingly decentralized, fragmented, pass into the hands of small owners through their purchase of shares, bonds, mortgage certificates, and the like, in reality the number of property-owners is growing, the number of owners, – while these narrow Marxists carry on about the outdated theory of concentration and the theory of impoverishment. If, for example, Russian factory-plant workers have, according to statistics, 157 thousand passbooks in savings banks for a sum of 21 million rubles, then about 5 million rubles of this sum is invested in railway loans, about 8 million rubles in mortgage bonds of land banks. This means, Russian factory-plant workers turn out to be, for whole five million rubles, owners of railways and for whole eight million rubles – landowners. So go on and talk about the proletariat! This means, the workers exploit the landowners, because in the form of interest on mortgage bonds they receive a share of rent, i.e., a share of surplus-value.

Yes, precisely such is the line of reasoning of the newest critics of Marxism… And – do you know what? – I am prepared, perhaps, to agree with the widespread opinion that "critique" should be hailed, because it has introduced movement into supposedly stagnant doctrine, – I am prepared, on one condition. French socialists once exercised their propagandistic and agitational abilities on analyzing the sophisms of Bastiat, the German – on unraveling the sophisms of Schulze-Delitzsch, while we Russians, it seems, have only been allotted for the time being the company of "critics." So then, I am ready to cry: "long live critique!" – provided that we socialists introduce as widely as possible into our propaganda and agitation among the masses an analysis of all the bourgeois sophisms of the fashionable "critique." Do you agree to this condition? – then shake on it! By the way, our bourgeoisie is increasingly keeping silent, preferring the defense of the tsar's archangels to the defense of bourgeois theoreticians, and it will be very convenient for us to take the "critics" as "devil's advocates."

Through the medium of savings banks an increasing number of workers and small producers become participants in large enterprises. This is an indisputable fact. But this fact proves not the growth in the number of property-owners, but 1) the growth of the socialization of labor in capitalist society and 2) the increasing subordination of small production to large. Take a poor Russian depositor. Those having up to 100 rubles are more than half, as we saw, namely 1,618 thousand with a capital of 42 million rubles, i.e., an average of 26 rubles per depositor. This depositor, therefore, "owns" railways to the tune of about 6 rubles, "land property" to the tune of about 9 rubles. Does he thereby become "well-to-do" or a "property-owner"? No, he remains a proletarian, forced to sell his labor-power, i.e., to go into servitude to the owners of the means of production. His "participation" in "railway and banking" affairs proves only that capitalism increasingly intertwines the individual members of society and individual classes. Interdependence between individual producers was completely insignificant under patriarchal economy; now it is becoming ever greater. Labor becomes increasingly social, enterprises increasingly "non-private," while remaining almost entirely in the hands of private persons.

Through his participation in large enterprises, the small depositor is undoubtedly interwoven with these enterprises. Who benefits from this intertwining? – Large capital, which expands its operations, paying the small depositor no more (and often less) than any creditor, and being all the more independent of the small depositor, the smaller and more fragmented these depositors are. We saw that the share of small depositors even in the capital of savings banks is extremely small. How insignificant then is their share in the capital of the railway and banking magnates? In giving their scraps to these magnates, the small depositor thereby falls into a new dependence on large capital. He has nothing to think about regarding the disposition of this large capital; his "profit" is laughably small (on 26 rubles at 4% = 1 ruble a year!). But in the event of a crash he loses entirely even his miserable scraps. The abundance of these small depositors does not signify the fragmentation of large capital, but the strengthening of the power of large capital, which receives into its disposition even the tiniest scraps of "popular" savings. The small depositor does not become more independent master from participating in large enterprises, but a more dependent person from large capital.

Not a comforting philistine conclusion about the growth in the number of property-owners flows from the increase in the number of small depositors, but a revolutionary conclusion about the strengthening of the dependence of the small on the large, about the sharpening of the contradiction between the increasingly socialized character of enterprises and the retention of private ownership of the means of production. The more savings banks develop, the greater becomes the interest of small depositors in the socialist victory of the proletariat, which alone will make them not fictitious, but real "participants" and managers of social wealth.

*Iskra* No. 17, February 15, 1902

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Iskra*